


expression

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fluff, For Science!, M/M, Science Boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce finds something unusual when checking on his experiments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	expression

Bruce went to Stark Tower after the battle in New York City because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Someone--Tony--actually wanted him to stick around. That worried Bruce. No one ever wanted him to stick around, not with the ever present threat of the Hulk. When he tried to mention that to Tony, he just laughed. “Come on, Bruce. You don’t think I can handle the Hulk?” Like it was nothing, like he didn’t worry about it at all.

So he settled into an easy routine at Stark Tower. Tony gave him full lab access, ten floors of toys that he could play with without worrying about any consequences. Bruce’s mind thrummed with activity. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and make a dash to the laboratory to get down his latest idea on paper. He hadn’t felt this stimulated intellectually in a long, long time. It had been years since he’d had steady access to a laboratory. And the kind of funding Tony provided? Well. Bruce had never gotten grants of that magnitude before and without research specific limitations.

And Tony. There was Tony. He didn’t even need a suit of armor. He was enough without being a superhero, already a genius. And yet he liked Bruce and kept him around with an easy smile. Bruce didn’t know how or what he had done to make Tony think so much of him but he was glad that he had. Bruce found it hard to remember a time he had felt special or unique in a positive way.

With Tony’s faith in him, Bruce stopped worrying about the Hulk so much. He felt like he could control the Hulk. For the first time in ages, Bruce focused on doing research for the sake of doing it--hoping to find something out that could be useful in entirely different ways, nothing focused on the Hulk at all. His current project was working with fluorescent plasmids and proteins.He enjoyed it because he immediately knew if an experiment had worked--the fluorescence itself was an indicator of success. It was tangible and after years of considering himself a failure as a scientist, tangible was something Bruce really enjoyed.

Bruce headed to the incubator in the laboratory. It was early in the morning and the place was peaceful. When Tony wasn’t around, Bruce preferred to work in more quiet than the constantly blasting AC/DC. He hummed under his breath, wondering if his bacterial transformation had worked. This plasmid was new to him and he didn’t know how difficult it would be to get _E. coli_ to integrate it into its genome. As he reached for his plates, his hand bumped against a plate on the right side of the incubator. Bruce frowned. He didn’t remember putting any plates to themselves; he preferred to keep them all in a stack together.

He pulled the plate out, noting the expression of red fluorescent protein--he certainly hadn’t been using that--and then he realized it wasn’t streaked out like a normal plate either. He squinted at the plate--was that shaped like a heart?

Tony cleared his throat behind him. Bruce whirled around to face him, still holding the plate of colonies.

“Is this--is that your idea of a joke?”

“You should know by now when I’m joking, Bruce,” Tony said wryly.

“But you aren’t a biologist.” Bruce’s mind sputtered, trying to fit pieces together to a puzzle he didn’t realize he had to solve.

“Genius, remember? And--” Tony cut himself off by taking a few steps until he was right in front of Bruce and kissed him.

“The conclusion, Bruce, is that this experiment was to get you to realize this,” Tony gesticulated around the lab, “ wasn’t something I do for just anyone. That this was me caring about you and do I really need to spell it out any further? I think the science speaks for itself, you know.”

“We might need to discuss the experimental approach more. Have you published anywhere? I’m a little fuzzy on the parameters of the experiment...” Bruce grinned and he kissed Tony this time. Biology was more useful than he remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff fluff fluff. The science should all check out okay but I was working from my own experiences with micro and fluorescent proteins. I tried to keep it simple, in any case. _Escherichia coli_ is a model organism in microbiology research. Some serotypes are responsible for food poisoning but otherwise it happily hangs out in your intestines.
> 
> I just love Tony and Bruce and they need to science together all the time. Science for the science boyfriends.


End file.
